Participatory action and learning in forest management: A field worker's guidebook for supporting community forest management

Abstract

The guidebook introduces Participatory Action and Learning (PAL) as an approach for both FUG members and forestry field staff to
learn together to promote active and equitable management of forest. Simply, PAL is about how facilitators and users act together to
learn from experience, and hence continually update the plans and subsequent actions. It is based on the concept of the learning cycle for participatory action research (PAR) used by FRP/DFID funded FFMP, a collaborative research project of Department of International and Rural Development (DIRD), The University of Reading, UK, Livelihoods and Forestry Programme (LFP). It is a unique synthesis of experiences gained through intensive action research in forest management with four forest users groups in the middle hills, while at the same time enriched by the experiences of LFP.